LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Qfj,i| t i..\- \ Sitpn-igljt Da. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 




CANONGATE, FROM TOP OF HYNDFORD'S CLOSE, 50 HIGH STREET 



LITERARY LANDMARKS 

OF 

EDINBURGH 



BY 



LAURENCE HUTTON 

AUTHOR OF "LITERARY LANDMARKS OF LONDON 
ft CURIOSITIES OF THE AMERICAN STAGE" ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 




Pll 



l/V 



i c-. 



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NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1891 



TTTl/o 



Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers. 

All rights reserved 



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TO 

E. V. H. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Canongate, from Top of Hyndford's 

Close, 50 High Street Frontispiece. 

Drummond ...... Facing p. 16 

Johnson " 18 

Boswell " 20 

Hume's Lodgings, Riddle's Close, 322 

High Street " 22 

James's Court, 501 High Street. . ... . " 24 

Smollett's House, St. John Street, Can- 
ongate '. " 26 

Adam Smith's House, Panmure Close, 

129 Canongate . " 28 

Gay " 32 

Stewart . " 34 

Craig's Close, 265 High Street .... " 36 
Burns's Lodgings, High Street, between 
Baxter's Close and Lady Stair's 

Close " 38 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lady Stair's Close Facing p. 40 

buccleuch pend, 14 buccleuch street " 42 

Burns " 44 

Sciennes House ; " 46 

Scott " 48 

Scott Monument from the South End 

of the waverley bridge " 52 

Wilson " 54 

Old Harrow Inn, Candlemaker Row . " 56 

39 Castle Street . . . .' 57 

Hogg " 58 

Jeffrey . ....... " 58 

Campbell .............. " 60 

Brougham " 62 

Sydney Smith " 62 

Brewster " 64 

21 Comely Bank 65 

Carlyle " 66 

Carlyle's Lodgings, Simon Square . . " 66 

De Ouincey's Cottage, Lasswade 67 

De Ouincey " 68 



INTRODUCTION 



NO city in the world of its age and size — for Athens is 
older and London is larger — is so rich as Edinburgh 
in its literary associations , and no citizens anywhere 
show so much respect and so much fondness for the his- 
tory and traditions of their literary men. This is partic- 
ularly noticeable among the more poorly housed and the 
less educated classes, in whom one would least expect to 
find it. Policemen and postmen, busy men and idlers, 
old women and maidens, no matter how poor in dress or 
how unclean in person, are ever ready to answer ques- 
tions or to volunteer information — sometimes imperti- 
nent, often pertinent — concerning the literary shrines of 
their own immediate neighborhoods , and they display a 
knowledge of books, and a familiarity with the lives and 
the deeds of the bookmen of past generations, most re- 
markable in persons of their squalid appearance and 
wretched surroundings. There is always some poor old 
man to be found, generally in some poor old public-house 
in the Old Town — both tavern and man having long ago 
seen their best days — who will, for the price of a "gill," 
give the literary pilgrim personal information concerning 
the literary history of an adjoining close or wynd or pend 
which is not to be gathered from any of the printed 
books. And because of his long and intimate acquaint- 
ance with the place of which he speaks, his identification 
of a particular old house — after it has been verified, and 
usually it can be verified — is often of more value than 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

that of all the guide-books put together. For while he 
contradicts himself sometimes, the guide-books sometimes 
contradict each other, to the utter confusion of the seeker 
after truth. 

It has been said that "the Scots wha hae do never 
spend." And yet the poor Scots of the Old Town of 
Edinburgh, rich only in local knowledge and tradition, 
are certainly generous in their information and lavish 
with their good • will , and without the kindly help and 
friendly sympathy of many a miserably clad, rough-hand- 
ed, poverty-stricken Solon of the modern British Athens 
this book could not have been written. 

As it now appears it was a labor of affection as well as 
of necessity , for in no other single work could be found 
half of what I wanted to know. Inspired by a reveren- 
tial curiosity to learn something about the present con- 
dition of the Homes and the Haunts of the Scottish Men 
of Letters in their own Metropolis, I have studied scores 
of local histories and hundreds of biographies, while I 
have spent many pleasant weeks in patient, painstaking 
examination of the hallowed neuks and corners of both 
ends of the Town. By actual observation I have satis- 
fied myself of the truth of every statement made, and I 
have visited personally every one of the Literary Land- 
marks of which I write. 

There is no space here to enumerate the authorities 
read, or the local antiquaries consulted. To all of these, 
and more especially to Mr. Anthony C. McBryde for 
much valuable advice and assistance, I wish to extend 
my sincerest thanks. And whatever there may be of 
value in the book is dedicated to the citizens of Edin- 
burgh, and to the strangers within their hospitable gates. 

Laurence Hutton 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 



From scenes like these Old Scotia's grandeur springs." 



THE Scottish men of letters seem to have been 
heroes even to their own valets — when they 
had valets — and they are certainly revered at home 
as much as they are honored abroad. While Scotch-' 
men's sons in the antipodes organize Burns Clubs 
and Waverley Societies, their fathers erect statues 
to their Scott and to their cotter bard in every cor- 
ner of the motherland ; when the poets of Scotland 
ask for bread they are given baronetcies and posi- 
tions in the excise ; and love and reverence as well 
as stalled oxen go therewith. The first thing which 
attracts the eye of the stranger upon his arrival in 
Edinburgh is the Scott Monument, not the Castle. 
The figures of Allan Ramsay, Professor Wilson, and 
their peers, in bronze or marble, standing on the 
lofty pedestals upon which their countrymen have 
placed them, are as suggestive of Scotland's might 
and of Scotland's right as is the Palace of Holyrood 
or the Cathedral of St. Giles. And the long line of 
the creators of Scottish literature, from Drummond 



16 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

of Hawthornden, the friend of Ben Jonson, to John 
Brown of Edinburgh, the friend of Rab, have done 
more to make and keep Scotland free than have all 
the belted knights her kings have ever made. 

The Roman alphabet was probably the first which 
found its way into Scotland ; its introduction, no 
doubt, was coeval with the introduction of Chris- 
tianity; and Richard, Abbot of St. Victor in Paris, a 
celebrated theologian, who died in 1173, may be 
considered the earliest literary man of Scottish birth. 
This prior, however, had but little to do with Edin- 
burgh, and the first Scottish author of renown who 
was familiar with the Netherbow or the Castle Hill 
was, unquestionably, Michael Scott, who wrote "A 
Booke of Alchemy " towards the end of the thir- 
teenth century. Between his day and that of the 
other Michael Scott, who wrote " Tom Cringle's 
Log" in the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
many scores of brilliant Scotchmen have walked 
the High Street and the Canongate — men " with 
intellects fit to grapple with whole libraries," or men 
who have been the author of but one immortal 
song; and men, all of them, of whom Scotland and 
the world are justly proud. 

Although William Drummond of Hawthornden 
passed the greater part of his life as a 

Drummond x 

retired country gentleman at his fa- 
mous mansion on the banks of the Esk, he was edu- 
cated at the High-school at Edinburgh and at the 
Edinburgh University, to which latter institution 
he bequeathed his collection of books ; and from his 




DRUMMOND 



DRUMMOND 17 

close neighborhood to the capital he was, without 
question, a frequent visitor to its streets and closes. 
The first " Hie Schule " of Edinburgh, in which 
Drummond was a pupil, was built in 1567, in the 
garden of the monastery of the Blackfriars, at the 
east end of the present Infirmary Street, and near 
the head of what was once the High-school Wynd. 
It was taken down in 1777, to make room for the 
second High -school, which is now the City Hos- 
pital. The present University buildings, dating 
back only from 1789, stand upon the site of the 
original establishment, no portion of which has been 
preserved. 

Hawthornden, which its owner, anticipating Gray's 
famous line, described as a sweet flowery place, " far 
from the madding worldlings' hoarse discords," is 
but seven miles from Edinburgh by country road, 
and half an hour by rail. Unfortunately it is not 
the identical mansion which Ben Jonson knew, al- 
though it was enlarged and altered by the poet's 
friend in 1638, eleven years before Drummond's 
death, and twenty years after that memorable visit, 
upon which, perhaps, in most minds, the Scotch 
poet's fame now rests. If Drummond, as he sat 
under his sycamore-tree that memorable afternoon, 
watching Jonson's approach, did not cry, " Wel- 
come, welcome, royal Ben," and if Jonson did not 
reply on the instant, " Thank'e, thank'e, Hawthorn- 
den," as tradition has ever since asserted, there can 
be no question that the welcome was a right royal 
one. Jonson might not have been so free with his 



18 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

thanks and his speech, however, if he had known 
that his " Hawthornden " was to become, at his ex- 
pense, the inventor of interviewing. Drummo.nd 
died at Hawthornden in 1649, and lies in the church- 
yard of Lasswade, not very far distant. 

The Scotchman who was to outshine Drummond 
Johnson as an interviewer, and to excel all the 
Bosweii writing world in that particular line, 
brought another if not a greater Johnson to Scot- 
land in 1773. On the night of the 14th of August 
of that year the following note was written and 
received in Edinburgh: "Mr. Johnson sends his 
compliments to Mr. Boswell, being just arrived at 
Boyd's." His sojourn at this time lasted but four 
days. After their return from the Hebrides, on the 
9th of November, Johnson remained about a fort- 
night in the Scottish capital, as Boswell's guest ; 
but, except to Boswell, neither visit was freighted 
with much importance. The great man was shown 
the Parliament House, the Advocates' Library, the 
Cathedral, the Castle, the College, and the Cowgate, 
and he had something disagreeable to say about 
each. He supped heartily, he dined heavily, and he 
talked ponderously. He made a deep impression 
upon his host's "daughter Veronica, then a child 
about four months old;" and, although his host for- 
got to mention it, he so pleased Mr. Henry Erskine, 
who was presented to him in the Parliament House, 
that Erskine slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, 
whispering that it was" for the sight of the bear." 
"Boyd's," at which Johnson alighted on his first 




JOHNSON 



JOHNSON— BOSWELL 19 

arrival in Edinburgh, was The White Horse Inn, in 
Boyd's Close, St. Mary's Wynd, Canongate ; but 
tavern, close, and wynd have all been swept away 
by the besom of improvement. St. Mary's Wynd 
stood where now stands St. Mary Street, and the 
site of the tavern, on the northeast corner of Boyd's 
Entry and the present St. Mary Street, is marked 
with a tablet recording its association with Boswell 
and Johnson. The White Horse continued to be 
a coaching house until the close of the eighteenth 
century, and in Boswell's day it was one of the best 
hostelries in the town. It must not, however, be 
confounded with The White Horse Inn, a pictu- 
resque ruin, with its shattered gables, its broken 
chimneys, and the date 1523 over its window, still 
standing at the foot of White Horse Wynd, at the 
other end of the Canongate. This is one of the 
most antique buildings left in Edinburgh, and it 
was the lodging -place of Captain Waverley " in 
stirring '45." 

The only other place of public refreshment asso- 
ciated with Johnson in Edinburgh or its neighbor- 
hood is the old inn at Roslin, at which the bear's 
ward and the bear once stopped for a dish of tea on 
their way to Hawthornden. No longer an inn, it 
stands almost directly opposite the chapel, back 
from the road, and is now a private house, of gray 
stone, with a tiled roof, little more than a cottage in 
size or condition. 

Some one has called Boswell's Ursa Major " the 
Jupiter of English letters with one satellite," which 



20 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

sounds very epigrammatic, but is not very true. 
The grand old primary planet of Bolt Court, who 
revolved about Fleet Street and the Temple in 
the days of the Georges, had more little stars in 
his train than the naked eye could see. Granting 
that James Boswell was the first satellite — a stellar 
body, by the way, which the astronomers describe 
as having no " sensible eccentricity" — how can the 
scientists ignore " Tom " Davies, Arthur Murphy, 
Topham Beauclerc, Bennet Langton, " Peter Pindar," 
Lucy Porter, Letitia Hawkins, Anna Williams, Char- 
lotte Lenox, or Mrs. Thrale? If these were not 
Jupiter's moons, the whole planetary system is a 
delusion and a snare. 

How much this literary Jupiter owes to his liter- 
ary satellites, particularly to the first one, it is not 
easy, at this distance of time, to tell. But who 
reads his " Journey to the Western Islands of Scot- 
land " in these days ? How often is his " Dictionary " 
consulted? What influence has his " Rambler" 
upon modern letters? Which sweet girl graduate 
or cultivated Harvard " man " of to-day can quote 
a line from " The Vanity of Human Wishes," or 
knows whether that production is in prose or verse? 
What would the world have thought of Samuel 
Johnson at the end of a hundred years if a silly 
little Scottish laird had not made a hero of him, to 
be worshipped as no literary man was ever wor- 
shipped before or since, and if he had not written a 
biography of him which is the best in any language, 
and the model for all others? 



JOHNSON— BOSWELL 21 

Mr. Croker in his preface calls attention to the 
curious fact that Boswell's personal intercourse with 
Johnson was exceedingly infrequent and limited ; a 
fact which is very apt to be overlooked even by the 
more careful readers of the " Life." They first met 
about twenty years before Johnson's death ; and 
after that meeting Boswell was not in England more 
than a dozen times. Mr. Croker even counted the 
days they were together in London, as well as dur- 
ing the visits to Edinburgh and the tour to the 
Hebrides, and shows them to have been but two 
hundred and seventy-six in all ; so that this mar- 
vellous biography, with its minuteness of detail, its 
small-talk and gossip, its wise and foolish disclosures, 
is the result of but nine months of actual observa- 
tion of its subject by its author. Were nine months 
ever so profitably and so industriously employed? 

Boswell's house in James's Court, Lawn-market 
(a continuation and part of the High Street), to 
which he conducted Johnson as soon as the new 
arrival had thrown the lemonade out of Lucky 
Boyd's window, and had threatened Boyd's waiter 
with a similar mode of exit, is no longer in exist- 
ence. James's Court, a little square, has three dis- 
tinct entrances from the Lawn-market, and is sur- 
rounded by houses eight or nine stories in height. 
In its present state it is picturesque enough and 
exceedingly unsavory, filled as it is with ragged 
women, beer and whiskey soddened men, dirty chil- 
dren, and clothes which are hung out to dry and 
are supposed to be clean, Robert Chambers was 



22 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

of the opinion that Boswell had two different suites 
of apartments in this court, and there is every reason 
to believe that as tenant of the earlier of these he 
succeeded David Hume, who had gone there in 
1762. This " land " was accidentally and totally de- 
stroyed by fire in 1857. 

Fortunately for Boswell's own peace of mind, he 
had left Hume's old lodgings when Johnson was 
his guest, for if Johnson had been told that the 
rooms he occupied had ever been profaned by the 
presence of " that echo of Voltaire," it is to be feared 
that Mrs. Boswell's tea, and Veronica herself, and 
all of the Boswell family, would have gone the way 
of Lucky Boyd's lemonade. 

Hume's first Edinburgh home was in Riddle's 
Close, on the opposite side of the Lawn- 
market — No. 322 High Street — his fam- 
ily consisting of himself, a maid, a cat, and now and 
then a sister, but never a wife. His house has been 
described as " in the first court reached on entering 
the close, and it is approached by a projecting tur- 
ret stair." It is black with age and dust and with 
the petrified smoke of many a score of years. It 
may not be out of place here to say that a " close," 
as defined in Jamieson's " Scottish Dictionary" and 
by other authorities, is a passage, an entry, an area 
before a house, a place fenced in; a " wynd " is an 
alley, a lane ; a " pend " is an arch ; a " bow " is the 
curve or bending of a street ; a " port " is a gate ; a 
" land " is a house consisting of different stories, 
generally including different tenements; a "toll" 




hume's lodgings, riddle's close, 322 high street 



HUME 23 

is a turnpike; a "tolbothe," or a " tollbooth," is a 
jail; a " trone," or " tron," is a weighing- beam ; a 
" brig " is a bridge ; a " change-hoose " is a small inn 
or ale-house; a "hole i' the wa'" is literally a hole 
in the wall, a doorway in a piece of masonry which 
has no window, or other door, or other embrasure 
of any kind; "scale stairs" are a straight flight of 
steps, as opposed to a "turnpike stair," which is of 
a spiral form ; and " luckie," or "lucky," is a desig- 
nation given to an elderly woman, the mistress of 
an ale-house. 

Hume began his " History of England " in Rid- 
dle's Close, but wrote the greater part of it in Jack's 
Land, in the Canongate, to which he removed in 
1753, and where he lived for nine years. Jack's 
Land, now numbered 229 Canongate, on the north 
side, is an old, dusky, dingy, four -storied building, 
entered from Little Jack's Close, and still standing 
as Hume left it to go to James's Court. After his 
return from the Continent, seven or eight years 
later, Hume built for himself a more pretentious 
house in the New Town. It is now No. 21 South 
St. David Street, and No. 8 St. Andrew Square, the 
entrance being on St. David Street, facing Rose 
Street. John Hill Burton, the author of " The Book 
Hunter," in his " Life of Hume," says that a tradi- 
tion existed among the domestics of Hume's house- 
hold that St. David Street was so called in derision, 
because David Hume lived in it, and that he is said 
to have told one of his " lassies," who protested 
against what she considered an insult, that " many 
3 



24 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

a waur man than he had been made a saint before." 
He died in his new house in 1776; and he lies under 
an ugly round tower, which is supposed to be of 
classic form, in the Old Calton Burying- ground. 
There is no record of the place of Hume's birth, ex- 
cept that it was in the " Tron Church Parish, Edin- 
burgh." 

It is a curious coincidence that the man so closely 
associated with Hume as the historian 
of England should have lived for some 
time in a house directly opposite the house once 
occupied by Hume in the Canongate. Mrs. Telfer, 
a sister of Tobias Smollett, occupied the second flat 
of the house 182 Canongate, over the archway lead- 
ing into St. John Street ; and here the novelist spent 
some time in 1766. The house is unchanged; the 
front windows look out upon the Canongate, al- 
though the apartments are entered from that thor- 
oughfare through the first door to the right after 
passing the pend, and up the circular steps in the 
tall abutment now numbered 22 St. John Street. 
Robert Chambers, writing almost sixty years after 
this visit of Smollett to Edinburgh, describes him as 
he heard him described by " a person who recollects 
seeing him there, as dressed in black clothes, tall and 
extremely handsome, but quite unlike the portraits at 
the front of his works, all of which are disclaimed by 
his relations." This is a picture which will interest 
those collectors who need to be assured by contem- 
porary evidence that perhaps no genuine engraved 
picture of the author of " Peregrine Pickle" exists. 




JAMES S COURT, 501 HIGH STREET 



SMOLLETT — ROBERTSON — BLAIR 25 

Smollett studied the Scottish capital and its 
inhabitants, and introduced them both into his 
" Humphry Clinker," published in 1771, a very 
curious and ingenious commingling of facts and 
fancy. Picturing himself as Matt Bramble, he 
writes to " Dr. Lewis " : " Edinburgh is a hot-bed 
of genius ; I have the good fortune to be made 
acquainted with many authors of the first distinc- 
tion, such as the two Humes, Robertson, Smith, 
Wallace, Blair, Ferguson, Wilkie, etc., and I have 
found them all as agreeable in conversation as they 
are instructive and entertaining in their writings. 
These acquaintances I owe to the friendship of Dr. 
Carlyle." 

The Robertson in question was William Robert- 
son, D.D., the historian, who died in 

Robertson 

1793, in the Grange House, still stand- 
ing south of the Grange Cemetery; Wallace was 
Robert Wallace, D.D., author of the 

Wallace 

" Dissertation on the Numbers of Man- 
kind," who died in the then suburban village of 
Broughton in 1 771 ; Blair was Hugh 

Blair to '' S 

Blair, D.D., the rhetorician, who was the 
first to introduce the poems of Ossian to the world, 
who occupied Hume's apartments in James's Court 
when Hume was on the Continent, who once lived 
in Argyle Square, and who was buried in the Grey- 
friars' Churchyard, his monument standing on the 

south side of the church ; Wilkie was 

Wilkie 

William Wilkie, D.D., whom Henry 
Mackenzie in his " Life of Home " called the "Scot- 

3* 



26 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

tish Homer"; Ferguson was Adam Ferguson, the 
Adam professor of moral philosophy, in whose 

Ferguson h ouse Burns and Scott had their first 
and only meeting, of which more anon ; Dr. Carlyle 
— known as " Jupiter Carlyle," from his imposing 

Alexander appearance — was the Rev. Alexander 
cariyie Carlyle, of Inveresk and Musselburgh, 
who became unpopular in his church on account of 
his assistance to Home in the production of "Doug- 
las " ; and Smith was Adam Smith, 
author of " The Wealth of Nations," 
one of the most remarkable books which bear a 
Scotchman's name — and that is saying much for it, 
and for him. 

Adam Smith spent the last twelve years of his 
life in Panmure House, Panmure Close, 129 Canon- 
gate. This edifice still stands on the right-hand 
side of the close, numbered 15, as one enters from 
the Canongate. He died here in 1790, and was 
buried in the Canongate Church-yard, a tall mural 
tablet on the wall of the rear of the Court-house, on 
the extreme left of the ground, recording that fact. 

"The two Humes" of whom Smollett wrote 
were unquestionably David Hume and 
John Home, the author of " Douglas," 
as both of them were often in his society in Edin- 
burgh. It is said that the only approaches to a dis- 
agreement in the long and intimate friendship ex- 
isting between these "two Humes" were regarding 
the relative merits of claret and port, and in relation 
to the spelling of their name, the philosopher in 




SMOLLETT S HOUSE, ST. JOHN STREET, CANONGATE 



HOME 27 

early life having adopted the orthography indicated 
by the pronunciation, the poet and preacher always 
clinging to the old and invariable custom of his 
family. David carried the discussion so far that on 
his death-bed he added a codicil to his will, written 
with his own hand, to this effect : " I leave to my 
friend Mr. John Home, of Kilduff, ten dozen of my 
old claret at his choice ; and one other bottle of that 
other liquor called port. I also leave him six dozen 
of port, provided that he attests, under his hand, 
signed John Hume, that he has himself alone fin- 
ished that bottle at a sitting. By this concession 
he will at once terminate the only difference that 
ever arose between us concerning temporal mat- 
ters." It is to be inferred that this is a joke which 
got into the head of one Scotchman without a sur- 
gical operation. 

John Home was born on the east side of Quality 
Street, near Bernard Street, Leith, in a house no 
longer standing. He was educated in the grammar- 
school of his native town, and at the University of 
Edinburgh. In 1767 he bought the farm of Kilduff, 
in East Lothian, where he remained until he re- 
moved to Edinburgh, thirteen years later. In 
"Home's Life and Letters" no hint is given as to 
his Edinburgh abiding-place. He died there, at a 
ripe old age, in 1 808, and was buried in the yard of 
South Leith Parish Church, on the outer wall of 
which, on the south side, is a tablet with a simple 
inscription to his memory. It is visible, but not 
legible, from Kirkgate Street. 



28 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

" Douglas " was first produced upon the regular 
stage on the 14th of December, 1756, at the Canon- 
gate Theatre (of which there is no sign now), in Play- 
house Close, 200 Canongate. According to tradi- 
tion, however — and very misty tradition — it was 
performed privately some time before at the lodg- 
ings of Mrs. Sarah Warde, a professional actress, 
who lived in Horse Wynd, near the foot of the Can- 
ongate, and with the following most astonishing 
amateur cast : 



Lord Randolph. .Rev. Dr. Robertson [principal of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh]. 

Glenalvon Dr. David Hume [historian]. 

Old Norval Rev. Dr. Carlyle [minister of Mussel- 
burgh]. 

Douglas Rev. John Home [the author of the trag- 
edy]. 

Lady Randolph. .Dr. Ferguson [professor of moral philos- 
ophy in the University of Edinburgh]. 

Anna (the Maid)... Rev. Dr. Hugh Blair [minister of the 
High Church of Edinburgh], 

Adam Ferguson as Lady Randolph and Hugh 
Blair as Anna must have added an unexpectedly 
comic element to the tragedy. It is not more than 
justice to say that Dugald Stewart, the biographer 
of Principal Robertson, asserts that the Randolph 
of this cast " never entered a play-house in his life." 
On the other hand, the Lady Randolph of this occa- 
sion, writing to Home some years later, used very 
professional and rather unfeminine language when 
she said : " Dear John, damn the actors that damned 




1 ;«* b" masss w*^b 



J I ill? I ,! 

i "i f;i)M "I 




»# 




ADAM SMITH S HOUSE, PANMURE CLOSE, I2g CANONGATE 



MACKENZIE 29 

the play." Lord and Lady Randolph, by the way, 
were billed as Lord and Lady Barnet when " Doug- 
las " was originally produced, and the original Nor- 
val originally declared his name to be " Forman, on 
the Grampian Hills," etc. 

Henry Mackenzie, the Man of Feeling and the 
- biographer of Home, was born in 174c; 

Mackenzie . * .. ■ , TTr f « . , , 

in Liberton s Wynd, which ran north 
and south between the Lawn-market and the Cow- 
gate, where George IV. Bridge now stands. Like 
so many of his towns-people, he was educated in the 
High -school and the University. He had many 
residences in Edinburgh during his long life. An 
umbrella-maker occupying the present No. 36 Cham- 
bers Street in 1889 pointed out with no little pride 
that tenement as having once been Mackenzie's 
home, when it was known as No. 4 Brown Square. 
The last years of his life were passed at No. 6 Her- 
iot Row, in one of a long line of eminently "gen- 
teel " houses facing the Queen Street Gardens, over 
which he had shot as a boy. The last of his own 
generation, he was the connecting link between the 
men of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth. 
He could remember the figures of Allan Ramsay 
and Robert Ferguson, and he was himself in his old 
age a familiar figure to some of the men of his guild 
who walk the streets of Edinburgh to-day. He died 
in Heriot Row in 1 831, at the age of eighty-six, and 
he lies under a plain mural tablet in the Greyfriars' 
Church-yard, on the north side of the terrace. He 
is described thereon as " an author who for no short 



30 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

time and -in no small part supported the literary 
reputation of his country;'' and yet the custodian 
of the little city cemetery, an enthusiastic lover of 
the spot and of its associations, said, in a regretful 
way, to an American visitor not very long ago, that 
Mackenzie was entirely forgotten by the men of the 
present day, and that no one had asked to see his 
resting-place in many years. Such graves as his 
should be pilgrim shrines ; but the only shrine in 
Greyfriars' which pilgrims care for now is the grave 
of a man of whom nothing is known except the fact 
that his single mourner was a mythical little terrier- 
dog ! 

A review of the first (or Kilmarnock) edition of 
Burns's poems, contributed by Mackenzie to a short- 
lived periodical called "The Lounger," may be said 
to have been the turning-point in the career of the 
poet, and to have decided his fate and his fame. 
Burns was on the eve of emigration perhaps when 
this article, coupled with the friendly efforts of Dr. 
Blacklock, brought him into public notice and into 
Edinburgh, and procured for him the patronage 
which encouraged his later efforts. 

A neighbor of Mackenzie's in that little city of 
the dead is another man of letters almost equally 
forgotten by the world, yet of whom it was said 
when he died that Scottish poetry died with him. 
For Allan Ramsay is believed to lie 
under a birch-tree almost in front of the 
tablet to his memory, on the south side of the Grey- 
friars' Church, although there is no stone to mark his 



RAMSAY 31 

grave. Ramsay began his life in Edinburgh as an 
apprentice to a periwig -maker in 1701, but some 
time between the years 1716 and 1720 he became a 
maker and a seller of books, his publications after 
the latter date bearing an imprint which stated that 
they were "sold at the sign of the Mercury, oppo- 
site the head of Niddry's Wynd." In 1726 he re- 
moved from this shop to one on the second floor of 
a building which stood upon the line of the High 
Street, " alongside St. Giles's Church," his windows 
commanding the City Cross and the lower part 
of the High Street. Here he changed his sign, 
substituting the heads of Ben Jonson and Drum- 
mond of Hawthornden for that of Mercury; and 
here he added to his business a circulating library, 
the first in Scotland. Below him, on the ground- 
floor, was the shop of William Creech, who published 
the second, or " Edinburgh," edition of Burns's 
Poems in 1787, and hence the name Creech's Land, 
so often given to Ramsay's second and last shop, to 
the confusion of the interested inquirer after literary 
landmarks. It was a part of the Luckenbooths, a 
group of queer -looking buildings which stood in, 
not on, the High Street, blocking up and disfiguring 
that thoroughfare in the days of Ramsay and Creech, 
but long since removed. 

" The Gentle Shepherd " was written and pub- 
lished while Ramsay was trading, and living too, in 
the establishment opposite Niddry's Wynd — now 
Niddry Street — and the house, still standing at 155 
High Street, is, for its associations' sake, one of the 



32 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

most interesting of the old buildings in Edinburgh 
to-day. It has now but two stories (the gables that 
surmounted it have lately beemremoved) and a high 
and sloping roof, from which rises an enormous 
square chimney, that might pass in the frequent 
mists of the place for a cupola or a bell tower. 

The last years of Ramsay's life were passed in a 
straggling stucco house off the present Ramsay 
Place and Ramsay Gardens, standing now very much 
as Ramsay built it, with a little bit of green behind 
it, and all of the New Town of Edinburgh at its 
front; having from its windows a fine view of the 
Castle, of a long line of streets and spires, and of a 
beautiful stretch of open country. Architecturally 
it cannot be commended, but it is superbly placed, 
and it hardly merits the name " Goose Pie," given 
it because of its peculiar shape by the would-be 
humorists of Ramsay's day. A statue of Ramsay 
stands in Princes Street Gardens, immediately in 
front of this house. 

The theatre built by Ramsay in 1736, and in 
which he lost so much of the money his books had 
brought him, stood at the foot of Carrubber's Close, 
No. 135 High Street. It was afterwards converted, 
and became a church called Whitfield Chapel ; but 
no stick or stone of chapel or play-house now re- 
mains. Ramsay and Gay often met in 
an ale-house called "Jenny Ha's Change- 
house," which used to stand in front of Queensberry 
House, in the Canongate, the mansion of Gay's 
patroness, described by Walpole as " Prior's Kitty 



GAY — STEWART 



33 



ever fair." Johnson in his " Lives of the Poets " 
says nothing of Gay's Edinburgh experiences, but 
he certainly spent some time there, and tradition 
used to point out his lodgings in the upper story of 
a poor tenement opposite Queensberry House, not 
far from Jenny Ha's establishment. Queensberry 
House, No. 64 Canongate, is now a House of Ref- 
uge for the Destitute. It is considerably altered in 
outward appearance, and is now an ugly, dark, unin- 
viting pile of gray stone, with no attempt at orna- 
mentation or architectural display. Jenny Ha's 
Change-house has entirely disappeared. 

Dugald Stewart, a contemporary and friend of 
Mackenzie, and the biographer of Dr. 

Stewart 7 r a , 

Robertson, lies not very far from Adam 
Smith in the Canongate Church-yard, near the south- 
west corner, under a large altar tomb of gray stone. 
He lived in Lothian Hut in the Horse Wynd, Can- 
ongate, upon the site of which a brewery now stands, 
and he died at No. 5 Ainslie Place, in the New 
Town, in a house on a little square at the west end of 
Queen Street, surrounded by aristocratic private res- 
idences. He was a constant frequenter of Creech's, 
although he had, naturally, no association with 
Ramsay, who died when Stewart was a boy of ten 
studying at the High-school, and living in the pre- 
cincts of the University, of which his father was pro- 
fessor of mathematics. 

Two notable Scotchmen, whose mortal parts now 
keep company with Smith and Stewart in the Can- 
ongate Church-yard, are " the two Fergusons," Rob- 



34 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

ert and Adam, men far apart in thought and char- 
acter during their lives, but closely united in death. 
Robert Robert Ferguson, whom Burns acknowl- 

Ferguson edged as his master, was born in 175 1 
in Cap and Feather Close, the site of which is now 
covered by the buildings standing on the east side 
of the North Bridge. He went to a small school in 
Niddry's Wynd, and later to the first High-school, 
and before he had reached the age of twenty-four he 
died in the pauper lunatic asylum called Old Darien 
House, which was demolished a century later. A 
tablet on the comparatively modern building No. 15 
Bristo Place states that there the Bedlam of poor 
Ferguson stood. Like so many children of genius, 
Ferguson's conduct reflected but little credit on his 
dam, and he was a relentless enemy towards himself, 
if not towards his brothers and sisters. He aban- 
doned the study of medicine because he fancied 
himself afflicted with every disease of which he read 
the description, and no doubt he died in a mad- 
house from fear that he would die insane. 

Ferguson can be traced to his taverns and his 
clubs in Edinburgh more easily than to any of his 
homes, except the last one ; and wherever fun was 
rampant and gin cheap, there was Ferguson to 
be found. He would often, as he sang in his 
" Cauler Oyster," 

" To Luckie Middlemist's loup in, 
And sit fu' snug 
Owre oysters and a dram o' gin 
Or haddock lug." 



ROBERT FERGUSON 35 

Lucky Middlemist's establishment in the Cowgate 
has given place to the south pier of the South 
Bridge. 

Another favorite resort of Ferguson's, where, 
" wi' sang and glass he'd flee the power o' care, that 
wad harras the hour," was the Cape Club, which met 
at The Isle of Man's Arms, Craig's Close (265 High 
Street). In Craig's Close is still to be seen the 
broken - down and neglected sign of the Cockburn 
Tavern, in front of a broken-down and neglected 
tenement, about half-way up the close on the east 
side, with all of its flashes of merriment gone this 
many a year. Standing as it does " between the 
back and front tenements," this may perhaps have 
been once The Isle of Man. Still another of the 
inns to which Ferguson went to " get his cares and 
pother laid " was Johnnie Dowie's Tavern, in Liber- 
ton's Wynd, which was later a favorite resort of 
Burns, and which has been dubbed "The Mermaid 
of Edinburgh." It was famous as the " Burns Tav- 
ern" in the last years of its existence, and was long 
one of the architectural lions of the Old Town for 
Burns's sake; but when George IV. Bridge was 
built both tavern and wynd were swept away, and, 
like everything else associated with Ferguson in life, 
no trace of it is left. There is even no absolutely 
authentic portrait of him known to the collectors ; 
and the best, if the most homely, of the contempo- 
rary descriptions of him represents him as being 
"very smally and delicate, a little in -kneed, and 
waigled a good deal in walking." 



36 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

How far Burns was really influenced by the verse 
of Ferguson it is not easy to say ; he certainly was 
ever ready to acknowledge that influence. " The 
Cotter's Saturday Night " was assuredly inspired by 
" The Farmer's Ingle," and there is no doubt that 
one of the first visits Burns made in Edinburgh was 
to the neglected grave of his " elder brother in the 
Muses." If he did not "sit him down and weep, 
uncovered," by the side of that lowly mound in the 
Canongate Church-yard, there can be no question 
that many a hat — of American make, at all events — 
has since been lifted in reverence there, for Burns's 
sake if not for Ferguson's. Burns, in his letter to 
The Honorable Bailies of Canongate, showed his 
feeling on this subject, and in a most substantial 
way. " I am sorry," he wrote, " to be told that the 
remains of Robert Ferguson, the so justly celebrated 
poet, a man whose talents for ages to come will do 
honor to our Caledonian name, lie in your church- 
yard among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and un- 
known. Some memorial to direct the steps of the 
lovers of Scottish song when they wish to shed a 
tear over the narrow house of the bard who is now 
no more is surely a Tribute due to Ferguson's mem- 
ory — a Tribute I wish to have the honor of paying. 
I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay 
a simple stone over his reverend ashes, to remain 
an unalienable property to his deathless fame." 

The simple stone which " directs Pale Scotia's 
way to pour her Sorrows o'er her Poet's Dust " is 
on the west side of the church, not many steps from 




craig's close, 265 high street 



BURNS 37 

the gateway, and on the left as one enters the 
.church -yard. It is always well cared for, and a 
royal Scottish thistle, planted by some devout hand, 
rises, as if defiantly, to guard the spot. 

Time has dealt kindly with the landmarks of 
Burns in the Scottish metropolis, and 

Burns . .... , . 

improvement in its disastrous march has 
passed around, not over them. He reached town 
for the first time towards the end of November, 1786, 
when he found lodgings in Baxter's Close ; during the 
same winter he is said to have lived on the Buccleuch 
Road ; and in the winter of 1787-88 he had rooms in 
St. James Square in the New Town. These houses 
are fortunately still standing, as are also the Lodge 
of Freemasons in St. John Street, the residence of 
his friend Lord Monboddo in the same street, The 
Hole-in-the-Wa' in Buccleuch Pend, the inn at Ros- 
lin, and Sciennes House. 

Lockhart in his " Life of Burns " quotes from the 
manuscript note-book of R. H. Cromek as follows : 
" Mr. Richmond, of Mauchline, told me that Burns 
spent the first winter of his residence in Edinburgh 
in his [Richmond's] lodgings. They slept in the 
same bed, and had only one room, for which they 
paid three shillings a week. It was in the house of 
a Mrs. Carfrae, Baxter's Close, Lawn -market, first 
scale stair on the left hand going down, first door in 
the stair." John Richmond was merely a lawyer's 
clerk, but the apartment was not quite so humble 
as Allan Cunningham represents it in his "Life' of 
Burns" — "a deal table, a sanded floor, and a chaff 



38 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

bed." It is a fair-sized room, panelled with wood; 
the window, however, looks out upon Lady Stair's 
Close (No. 477 High Street), not upon Baxter's 
Close (No. 469 High Street). The house itself was 
an old house even in Burns's day, and now it is re- 
duced to the very lowest social level. It holds no 
tablet to tell the passer-by of its former famous ten- 
ant; but nearly all of its present humble occupants 
are well aware, and very proud, of the fact that they 
sleep under the roof that once sheltered Robert 
Burns. 

Lockhart is the authority for saying that Burns 
lodged with William Nicoll, one of the teachers of 
the High-school, on the Buccleuch Road (now Buc- 
cleuch Street), during the winter of 1786-87. This 
house is over the pend — now called Buccleuch Pend 
— leading into St. Patrick Square, and directly op- 
posite Buccleuch Place ; and Nicoll's apartments 
were on the top floor. If Burns did not lodge with 
Nicoll, he was certainly familiar with the neighbor- 
hood, for in the archway was, and still is, a hole-in- 
the-wall, leading, a century ago, to an underground 
public-house kept by one Lucky Pringle, and much 
frequented both by Nicoll and Burns. The oldest 
inhabitants of the street and the square have no 
recollection of Lucky Pringle or of her dram-shop; 
but, no doubt, it was in the basement of the house 
just to the north of Buccleuch Pend, and numbered 
now 14 Buccleuch Street. 

When Burns revisited Edinburgh he lodged with 
William Cruikshank, another teacher of the High- 










BURNS S LODGINGS, HIGH STREET, BETWEEN BAXTER S CLOSE AND 
LADY STAIR'S CLOSE 



BURNS 39 

school, in a house on the southwest corner of St. 
James Square, in the New Town, and his was the 
topmost, or attic, window in the gable looking tow- 
ards the General Post - office, in Waterloo Place. 
Herefrom Burns wrote : " I am certain I saw you, 
Clarinda; but you don't look to the proper story for 
a poet's lodging — ' where speculation roosted near 
the sky.' I could almost have thrown myself over 
for very vexation. Why didn't you look higher? 
It has spoiled my peace for the day. To be so near 
my charming Clarinda — to miss her look when it 
was searching for me ! . . . I am sure the soul is 
capable of disease, for mine has convulsed itself 
into an inflammatory fever." 

This window of Burns's was pointed out to an 
enthusiastic pilgrim, one summer morning in 1889, 
by an old resident of St. James Square to whom 
Clarinda had pointed it out herself. He remem- 
bered Clarinda (Mrs. M'Lehose) in her old age, when 
she lived beneath his own father in a small flat in a 
house at Greenside, upon an insignificant annuity 
allowed her by her brother. She went once to her 
husband in Jamaica, but did not leave the ship, as 
Mr. M'Lehose insisted upon her immediate return, 
on the ground that the climate would not agree 
with her. She was in very poor circumstances dur- 
ing her later years, but never wearied of telling the 
story of her flirtation with Burns. As the aged resi- 
dent remarked : " The auld donnert leddy bodie 
spoke o' her love for the poet just like a hellicat bit 
lassie in her teens, and while exhibitin' to her cronies 



40 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

the faded letters from her Robbie she would just 
greet like a bairn. Puir auld creature, she never till 
the moment o' her death jaloused or dooted Rob- 
bie's professed love for her ; but, sir, you ken he was 
juist makin' a fule o' her, as his letters amply show." 

Mrs. M'Lehose, deserted by her husband, lived, in 
Burns's time, with two young children in General's 
Entry, which lay between the Potterrow and Bristo 
Street ; but no houses dating back to Clarinda's day 
stand within a stone's-throw of Clarinda's flat. The 
somewhat pretentious public school on Marshall 
Street was built upon General's Entry. 

On the 14th of January, 1787, Burns wrote: "I 
went to a Mason lodge yesternight, where the M. W. 
Grand Master Charteris and all the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland visited. The meeting was numerous and 
elegant ; all the different lodges about town were 
present in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who 
presided with all solemnity, among other general 
toasts gave ' Caledonia and Caledonia's bard, Brother 

B ,' which rang through the whole assembly with 

multiplied honors and repeated acclamations. As 
I had no idea such a thing would happen I was 
downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every 
nerve, made the best return in my power." 

This was at the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge of 
Freemasons, of which Burns afterwards was made 
poet - laureate ; and his inauguration, painted by 
William Stewart Watson, is familiar to all Scotch- 
men and Scotchmen's sons on both sides of the At- 
lantic, by reason of the many engravings made of it. 




/ 



LADY STAIR'S CLOSE 



/ 



BURNS 41 

The hall of the Kilwinning Lodge is still standing, 
on the west side of St. John Street, and is square 
and grim and rigid in appearance, the exterior and 
interior remaining as Burns saw them. 

Nearly opposite the Kilwinning Lodge lived Lord 
Monboddo and his daughter, the lovely Miss Bur- 
net, whose untimely death the poet mourned in 
verse. At this house, still left, commonplace and in 
itself uninteresting, half-way between the Canongate 
and the South Back of the Canongate, and now num- 
bered 13 St. John Street, Burns was a frequent 
guest, as he was at the town residence of many a 
belted knight and at the humble home of many an 
honest man in Edinburgh during his happy life 
there, in houses of which no record need be given 
here. 

The old inn at Roslin, already described as a 
stopping-place once of Boswell and Johnson, is per- 
haps more famous still because of certain lines to 
the landlady written by Burns on the back of a 
wooden platter, in which he declares that although 
" he ne'er was here before, he'll ne'er again gang by 
her door." 

A print of Dowie's Tavern is to be found in 
Hone's " Year-book," accompanied by a verbal de- 
scription written in 1831, when the place was doom- 
ed to destruction. At that time, the writer states, 
" few strangers omitted to call in to gaze at the 
coffin [?] of the bard ; this was a small dark room 
which could barely accommodate, even by squeez- 
ing, half a dozen, but in which Burns used to sit. 



42 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

Here he composed one or two of his best songs, and 
here are preserved to the last the identical seats and 
table which had accommodated him." 

Another favorite tavern of Burns which has long 
since disappeared was that of Dawney Douglas, in 
Anchor Close, where met the Crochallan Fencibles, 
whose performances Burns has chronicled in more 
places than one ; and where " rattlin', roarin' Willie," 
and other rattlin', roarin' gentlemen, sat at the board 
with him on many a rattlin', roarin' occasion. At 
the foot of this same Anchor Close, 243 High Street, 
was the printing-office of William Smellie, where 
Burns corrected the proofs of his poems in that win- 
ter of 1786-87. This establishment was taken down 
in 1859 when Cockburn Street was constructed, and, 
strangely enough, the modern presses of the " Scots- 
man " newspaper roll and tumble now upon the spot 
where Black and Blair, and Smith and Hume, and 
Burns and Ferguson watched the printing of their 
own works. 

One of the most interesting of all the literary 
landmarks of Edinburgh, naturally, is the house in 
which Burns and Scott met for the first and only 
time. The story of this famous encounter, as told 
by Scott himself, is here given in full: — "As for 
Burns " (he wrote to Lockhart, many years later), " I 
may truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum. I was a lad 
of fifteen in 1786-87, when he came first to Edin- 
burgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much 
interested in his poetry, and would have given the 
world to know him ; but I had very little acquaint- 



lift 




BUCCLEUCH PEND, 14 BUCCLEUCH STREET 



BURNS 43 

ance with any literary people, and still less with the 
gentry of the West Country, the two sets that he 
most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that 
time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and 
promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but 
had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I 
might have seen more of this distinguished man. 
As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable 
Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gen- 
tlemen of literary reputation, among whom I re- 
member the celebrated Dr. Dugald Stewart. Of 
course we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. 
The only thing I remember which was remarkable 
in Burns's manner was the effect produced upon 
him by a print of Bunbury's representing a soldier 
lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on 
the one side, on the other his widow, with a child 
in her arms. These lines were written beneath : 

" ' Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain, 
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain ; 
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew; 
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew, 
Gave the sad presage of his future years, 
The child of misery, baptized in tears.' 

" Burns seemed much affected by the print, or 
rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. 
He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines 
were, and it chanced that nobody but myself re- 
membered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem 
of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of 
'The Justice of the Peace.' I whispered my infor- 



44 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

mation to a friend present, who mentioned it to 
Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word 
which, though of mere civility, I then received and 
still recollect with very great pleasure. 

" His person was strong and robust ; his manners 
rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness 
and simplicity, which received part of its effect per- 
haps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary tal- 
ents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's 
picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are 
diminished, as if seen in perspective. I think his 
countenance was more massive than it looks in any 
of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had 
I not known what he was, for a very sagacious coun- 
try farmer of the old Scotch school — i. e., none of 
your modern agriculturists who keep laborers for 
their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held 
his own plough. There was a strong expression of 
sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye 
alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and 
temperament. It was large and of a dark cast, and 
glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with 
feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye 
in a human head, though I have seen the most dis- 
tinguished men of my time. His conversation ex- 
pressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest 
presumption. Among the men who were the most 
learned of their time and country, he expressed him- 
self with perfect firmness, but without the least in- 
trusive forwardness ; and when he differed in opin- 
ion he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at 



BURNS 45 

the same time with modesty. I do not remember 
any of his conversation distinctly enough to be 
quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the 
street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not 
expect he should." 

The story itself is familiar to all admirers of both 
the poets, but the question of the identity of the 
house has been the subject of much discussion 
among the local historians and antiquaries for 
many years. That it was the house of Professor 
Adam Ferguson there is no doubt, but as to where 
the professor at that time lived the doctors differ. 
In Peter Williamson's " Edinburgh Directory " of 
1786-88, his address is given as Argyle Square — 
which is near the University, and which disappeared 
on the construction of Chambers Street — and this 
fact led to the inference that the meeting must have 
occurred in that place, as Burns was in Edinburgh 
during the winter of 1/S6-S/. But Scott himself 
speaks of Ferguson as living in an insulated house 
some distance from the town (Argyle Square was 
almost in the heart of the city) ; in a biographical 
sketch of Ferguson, printed in "The Transactions 
of the Edinburgh Royal Society" (1861-64), the 
writer says he lived at that time "in a suburb called 
the Sciennes ;" Henry Cockburn in his "Memorials" 
says, " Old Adam Ferguson lived just east of my 
father's house," which would point clearly to the 
neighborhood of the Sciennes ; and to crown all, 
Mr. Archibald Munro, in a letter to one of the Edin- 
burgh papers published about ten years ago, says 



46 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

he found a printed record in the Register Office 
showing that Professor Ferguson disposed of his 
house in Argyle Square on the 3d of October, 1786 
— almost two months before Burns arrived in town 
— and that he got possession of Sciennes House on 
the nth of October of the same year. This must 
surely settle the question of locality. Certain anti- 
quaries assert that the stone cottage now called 
Alice Villa, and numbered 2 Sciennes Hill, was Fer- 
guson's home — a claim which neither the size nor 
the modern construction of the house would seem 
to warrant. So that the old building, or what is 
left of it, still known as Sciennes House — and here 
for the first time pictured — certainly appears to 
have been 

"the spot 
Where Robert Burns ordained Sir Walter Scott." 

It stands on the north side of Braid's Place — 
which is not numbered — two doors from the street 
called "The Sciennes." The present front, entirely 
rebuilt, was the back of the house occupied by Fer- 
guson. The original front, still remaining in part, 
looked out upon its own grounds, now a paved yard 
full of children and of drying clothes. This front is 
not visible from the streets about it, and the fact of 
its existence is comparatively unknown even to the 
inhabitants of its own immediate neighborhood. 
Sciennes House in its day must have been an im- 
posing mansion. It has four windows in breadth, 
and is three stories high ; on its roof is a balustrade, 




SSP 






ML 

- - - ' 




SCOTT 47 

and groups of flowers and fruits carved in stone are 
still to be seen upon it. 

The name Sciennes, by the way, is derived from 
the old Convent of St. Katherine of Siena, which 
once stood near by, and the word is pronounced in 
the local vernacular as if spelled " Sheens." The 
fact that all of these points are now for the first time 
established and made public must be the excuse for 
the devotion of so much space to this particular 
matter. 

Those lovers of Scott who love the inanimate 
things which Scott loved will find much 

Scott 

to interest them in Edinburgh ; for, 
with the exception of the house in which he was 
born, almost all of his homes and haunts in the 
metropolis are still to be seen there, and in very 
much the same state as that in which he saw them. 
A tablet upon the modern house No. 8 Chambers 
Street, between South Bridge Street and West Col- 
lege Street, states that it was built upon the site of 
the birthplace of Sir Walter Scott. This stood at 
the head of College Wynd, described as " a steep 
and straitened alley" ascending from the Cowgate 
towards the southern side of the town. It was orig- 
inally called the Wynd of the Blessed-Mary-in-the- 
Field, and what is left of it is now called Guthrie 
Street, perhaps after the famous Dr. Guthrie, who 
never officially recognized the Blessed Mary any- 
where. Scott's house and others about it were 
pulled down, when Scott was a child, to make room 
for the front of the new College, and the family 



48 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

moved to No. 25 George Square, into a broad and 
rather imposing mansion in what was once a fash- 
ionable quarter, and is still the home of those who 
belong to the upper middle class if not to the 
gentry. It may be described as the Washington 
Square or Chester Park of Edinburgh. The Scotts' 
house is entirely unchanged, although the buildings 
on each side of it have been retouched and reg-ar- 
nished. It is close to the Meadows, and almost in 
the country. 

This, according to his own statement, continued 
to be his " most established place of residence (after 
his return from Prestonpans in 1776) until his mar- 
riage in 1797." Here Mrs. Cockburn, who wrote 
"The Flowers of the Forest," found in 1777 "the 
most extraordinary genius of a boy I ever saw. He 
was reading a poem to his mother when I went in. 
I made him read on. It was the description of a 
shipwreck. His passion rose with the storm. He 
lifted his eyes and hands. ' That's the mast gone,' 
says he ; ' crash it goes. They will all perish.' After 
his agitation he turns to me. ' That is too melan- 
choly,' says he ; ' I had better read you something 
more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and asked 
him his opinion of Milton and other books he was 
reading, which he gave me wonderfully. . . . Pray 
what age do you suppose this boy to be ? Why, 
twelve or fourteen. No such thing. He is not 
quite six years old !" In this same George Square 
house, in 1 791, Jeffrey went to see the young Scott 
"in a small den in the sunk floor, surrounded by 



SCOTT 49 

dingy books ;" and here he made the translation of 
Burger's " Lenore," his first published literary work. 
Scott's earliest school was in a " small cottage-like 
building with a red-tiled roof, in Hamilton's Entry, 
off Bristo Street." It was taken down not very long 
ago, the rear of the house No. 30 Bristo Street occu- 
pying its site now. In 1779 he went to the High- 
school, where he remained some years. He entered 
the University in 1783. Scott's High -school was 
the second of that name. It is now the City Hos- 
pital, at the foot of Infirmary Street, and so far as 
its exterior is concerned it is entirely unchanged. 
A story of his conduct here, as told by himself, is 
too good to be lost. " There was a boy in my class 
at school who stood always at the top, nor could I 
with all my efforts supplant him. Day came after 
day and still he kept his place, do what I would, till 
at length I observed that when a question was asked 
him he always fumbled with his fingers at a partic- 
ular button in the lower part of his waistcoat. To 
remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes, 
and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. 
Great was my anxiety to know the success of my 
measure ; and it succeeded too well. When the 
boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again 
for the button, but it was not to be found. In his 
distress he looked down for it ; it was to be seen no 
more than to be felt. He stood confounded, and I 
took possession of his place ; nor did he ever recover 
it, or ever, I believe, suspect who was the author of 
his wrong. Often in after-life has the sight of him 



50 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

smote me as I passed by him ; and often have I re- 
solved to make him some reparation ; but it ended 
in good resolutions. Though I never renewed my 
acquaintance with him, I often saw him, for he filled 
some inferior office in one of the courts of law at 
Edinburgh. Poor fellow ! I believe he is dead. He 
took early to drinking." 

Scott was married on the day before Christmas, 
1797, and he carried his bride to lodgings on the 
second floor of No. 108 George Street, a house still 
standing, next door to the corner of Castle Street. 
Later they took the house No. 19 South Castle 
Street, and not long after the house 39 Castle Street, 
where they lived while in town for upwards of 
twenty-six years. All of these domiciles are virtu- 
ally unchanged. Lockhart has fully described the 
interior of " dear old 39," and the routine of life 
there, the glorious work done there, the notable 
company gathered there. It was the house, as 
Scott wrote, which had sheltered him from the 
prime of life to its decline ; and he left it with no 
little regret. 

He never had a settled home in Edinburgh after 
leaving Castle Street. In the summer of 1826 he 
was lodging with Mrs. Brown at No. 6 St. David 
Street, where on May 12th he wrote : " When I was 
at home I was in a better place. I must when there 
is occasion draw to my own Bailie Nicol Jarvie's 
consolation — ' One cannot carry the comforts of the 
Saut Market about with one.' Were I at ease in 
my mind, I think the body is very well cared for. 



SCOTT 51 

Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, 
a clergyman — and, despite his name, said to be a 
quiet one." On the 15th of the same month Lady 
Scott died at Abbotsford. Sir Walter returned to 
St. David Street on the 30th of May, and remained 
there until the 13th of July. Mrs. Brown's estab- 
lishment was a second-rate lodging-house, which has 
now disappeared. Here Scott, among other things, 
was diligently at work upon his " Napoleon." In 
November, 1826, he took a furnished house — more 
comfortable in every way — at No. 3 Walker Street, 
on the east side, near Coates Crescent. From this 
house, on the evening of the 23d of February, 1827, 
he walked to the Assembly Rooms in George Street, 
near Hanover Street, and there, at a public dinner, 
he confessed for the first time in public the author- 
ship of the " Waverley Novels." As Lockhart writes, 
" The sensation produced by this scene was, in news- 
paper phrase, ' unprecedented.' " 

Between 1828 and 1830 Scott lived at No. 6 
Shandwick Place — now Maitland Street, a continu- 
ation of Princes Street. In February, 183 1, while 
superintending the making of his will, he was the 
guest of his bookseller, Robert Cadell, in Athol 
Crescent, and the last night he spent in Edinburgh 
was at the Douglas Hotel, 34 and 35 St. Andrew 
Square, now the office of the Scottish Union and 
Insurance Company ; and on the morning of the 
nth of July, 1832, he was carried unconscious from 
this house and from Edinburgh, to die at Abbots- 
ford two months later. 
6* 



52 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

To follow the footsteps of Sir Walter Scott in 
Edinburgh, it is only necessary to walk through all 
the streets and alleys of the Old Town, and through 
most of the streets and avenues of the New. De- 
spite his fondness for Abbotsford, he was a thorough 
cockney at heart, and he knew and loved every inch 
of the smoky old city from the College Wynd to St. 
Andrew Square. He limped at full speed up and 
down the Cowgate in his boyhood ; and " no funeral 
hearse," says Lockhart, " crept more leisurely than 
did his landau in his middle age up the Canongate ; 
not a queer tottering gable but recalled to him some 
long-buried memory of splendor or bloodshed, which 
by a few words he set before the hearer in the real- 
ity of life." 

As a boy Scott was fond of the precincts of Hynd- 
ford's Close (50 High Street) — of which some of the 
old houses are still left — for here lived his mother's 
brother, Dr. Daniel Rutherford ; and as a man in 
1 8 19 he bade farewell to his mother at 75 George 
Street, now a shop, and carried her therefrom to St. 
John's Church, at the west end of Princes Street, 
where she lies in an unmarked and unknown grave. 
His father, who died some time before, rests in the 
Greyfriars' Church -yard, on the south side of the 
walk by the archway into the west ground, and, ac- 
cording to the register, " just at the foot of the stone 
marking the foot of the grave of Alexander Grant." 
There is nothing to show that this was the family 
burial-place until 18 19, although it is said that the 
Town Council of Edinburgh contemplates a memo- 




SCOTT MONUMENT FROM THE SOUTH END OF THE WAVERLEY BRIDGE 



SCOTT 53 

rial of some sort there at some time. It seems 
strange that the great-souled, great-brained author 
of " Waverley," whose heart was as large as his head 
was high, should have placed a commemoration 
stone over the grave of " Helen Walker, the humble 
individual who practised in real life the virtues with 
which fiction has invested the imaginary character 
of Jeanie Deans," and should have neglected entire- 
ly the spot where the authors of his own being were 
laid. 

Some of the scenes of " The Heart of Mid-Lo- 
thian" are said to have been written under a tree by 
the side of Duddingston church, of which Scott was 
chosen an elder in 1806; but neither Helen Walker 
nor her father nor her sister ever lived in the little 
hut now called Jeanie Deans's Cottage on St. Leon- 
ard's Hill, not far off, where local legend places the 
scenes of the story. 

One of the most notable of the Edinburgh houses 
associated with Scott is that of James Ballantyne, 
his friend and publisher, at No. 10 St. John Street, 
a grim, heavy-looking mansion of plain stone, four 
stories high, a few doors from that of Lord Mon- 
boddo, so familiarly associated with Burns. Here 
the "Waverley Novels " were planned and discussed, 
and were read from manuscript or advance-sheets 
to the happy and select few in the secret of the 
Great Unknown. Ballantyne's printing-office was 
near the foot of Leith Wynd, now Cranston Street, 
and is at present an upholstery and cabinet-making 
establishment. 



54 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

Constable's shop, in Scott's time, was at No. 10 
Princes Street. Scott naturally was often there, 
and also at the establishment of the Blackwoods — 
first at No. ij Princes Street (still a book-shop), and 
later, as at present, at 45 George Street, on the north 
side. Peter, in his " Letters to his Kinsfolk," de- 
scribes the famous oval saloon of the Blackwoods, 
with its " loungers and literary dilettanti " and its 
portraits and sacred relics. A new generation of 
loungers has appeared, but the surroundings are all 
unchanged. 

Sir Walter was a frequent guest in all of the best 
houses in Edinburgh, and he knew the book-rooms 
of Wilson in Anne Street and Gloucester Place, the 
poor little parlor of Hogg in Deanhaugh Street, the 
libraries of Jeffrey in George Street and Moray 
Place, and no doubt Campbell's flat in Alison 
Square, as well as he knew his own homes. 

Wilson lived with his mother for many years, and 
even after his marriage in 181 1, at No. 

Wilson & 

53 Queen Street, near Castle Street, in 
a three -story house looking out on Queen Street 
Gardens. In 18 19 he removed to a tall and rather 
imposing house, No. 29 Anne Street, in the north- 
western suburbs, and near the Water of Leith. He 
went to No. 6 Gloucester Place in 1826, where he 
died in 1854. A granite obelisk on the left of the 
main walk in the Dean Cemetery marks Wilson's 
grave. 

By the side of Wilson lie the remains of his son- 
in-law, William Edmondstoune Aytoun, author of 




WILSON 



WILSON 55 

"The Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." Aytoun, 
who has been described as " one of those Charlie- 
over-the-Water Scotchmen," lived for some time at 
No. I Inverleith Terrace, and died at No. 16 Great 
Stuart Street. He was professor of belles-lettres 
in the University, and he married Jane Emily Wil- 
son, the youngest daughter of " Christopher North," 
in 1849. 

Haydon once described Wilson as looking " like 
a fine Sandwich Islander who had been educated in 
the Highlands. His light hair, deep sea-blue eyes, 
tall athletic figure, and hearty hand-grasp, his eager- 
ness in debate, his violent passions, great genius, 
and irregular habits, rendered him a formidable par- 
tisan, a furious enemy, and an ardent friend." His 
tall figure made him a member of the " Six Feet 
Club," an athletic and convivial association of which 
the Ettrick Shepherd was once president, and Sir 
Walter more than once the umpire ; his irregular 
habits perhaps took him to Johnnie Dowie's tavern 
now and then, where he records that he met " Tom" 
Campbell ; and his genius led him to inaugurate the 
famous " Noctes Ambrosianae," and to place them 
in the tavern of Ambrose, in Gabriel's Road. This 
justly celebrated public-house, which is said to have 
looked more like a farm-house on a country path- 
way than a city inn, has long since disappeared, and 
none of the local histories give its exact position. 
This, according to those who still remember it, is 
the site of the New Register House, in the rear of 
the old Register House ; and it is approached from 



56 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

West Register Street by the narrow alley running 
now between the New Register House and the new 
Cafe Royal. This little paved foot-path was, in the 
time of Ambrose's, a green lane called Gabriel's 
Road, leading diagonally across the New Town to 
Silvermills, and it is said still to claim its ancient 
privilege of a right of way. 

Lockhart and Hogg were familiar figures at Am- 
brose's tavern in the famous days of the 

Hogg 

Round-table there, and Hogg was one 
of the wildest of the knights sung by Wilson in his 
" Noctes." When he dropped into poetry in a pro- 
fessional way he came to Edinburgh, lodging in 
Ann Street, " down along the North Brig towards 
where the new markets are, and no vera far frae the 
play-houses;" and sometimes he made the Harrow 
Inn near the Grass-market his abiding-place. Anne 
Street was swept out of existence altogether upon 
the construction of the Waverley Bridge, but an ir- 
regular row of old gabled houses, still standing, and 
converted into shops and poor tenements, from 46 
to 54 Candlemaker Row, are the shells of the Har- 
row Inn. 

It was in front of this tavern, by the way, that 
Rab first introduced Dr. Brown to his friends James 
Noble, the Howgate carrier, and to Jess, the carrier's 
horse, after that Homeric dog-fight under the single 
arch of the South Bridge. 

In 181 2 and later Hogg wrote to Archibald Con- 
stable from " Deanaugh," which was Deanhaugh 
Street, a row of poor- looking houses in the north- 




OLD HARROW INN, CANDLEMAKER ROW 



HOGG 



57 



western suburbs of Edinburgh, running from Dean 
Terrace over the Water of Leith to Raeburn Place. 
Here he completed " The Queen's Wake." 

Lockhart gives a queer description of Hogg's first 
dinner with the Scotts at 39 Castle Street. When 
he entered the drawing-room he found Mrs. Scott, 
who was then an invalid, reclining upon a sofa. 
" The Shepherd, after being presented and making 
his best bow, forthwith took possession of another 
sofa placed opposite to hers, and stretched himself 
thereupon at his full length, for, as he said after- 
wards, ' I thought I could never do wrong to copy 
the lady of the house.' As his dress at that period 
was precisely that in 
which any ordinary 
herdsman attends cat- 
tle to the market, and 
as his hands, moreover, 
bore most legiblemarks 
of recent sheep-smear- 
ing, the lady did not 
observe with perfect 
equanimity the novel 
usage to which her 
chintz was exposed. 
The Shepherd, how- 
ever, remarked nothing 
of all this, dined heart- 
ily and drank freely, 
and by jest, anecdote, 
and song afforded plen- 
7 



i> 1 

! ! 




Il^^i0& m ' a 



Pi! 



in 8W:Sjq i 

K IB 1 -Oil rjgp M $ 




39 CASTLE STREET 



58 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

tiful merriment to the more civilized part of the 
company. As the liquor operated, his familiarity 
increased and strengthened ; from ' Mr. Scott,' he 
advanced to ' Shirra,' and thence to ' Scott,' ' Walter,' 
and ' Watty ;' until at supper he fairly convulsed the 
whole company by addressing Mrs. Scott as ' Char- 
lotte.'" 

The fact that Hogg succeeded Burns as poet- 
laureate of the Kilwinning Lodge of Freemasons 
will show the regard felt for him by that portion of 
the community at least. 

Lockhart's various abiding -places in Edinburgh 
from the time of his p;oing there as a 

Lockhart _, ? . f 

member of the Scottish bar in 1816 
until his establishment in London, ten years later, 
are not very clearly defined. It is recorded that 
Scott spent much time with him one summer at his 
house in Melville Street, Portobello. He was at 
No. 23 Maitland Street, a few doors from Athol 
Crescent, in 18 18, and a letter of his to Hogg was 
addressed from No. 25 Northumberland Street in 
1 82 1 ; but in his own correspondence, and in that of 
his friends, and in the printed gossip of his contem- 
poraries, no hint is given as to any other of his local 
habitations. Naturally he was often in Scott's vari- 
ous houses, and a guest at all of the tables of all of 
the men of his own charming coterie. He died at 
Abbotsford, and was buried at Sir Walter's feet. 

In " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," published 
anonymously by Lockhart in 18 19 — a most amus- 
ing and seemingly correct picture of the men and 




HOGG 




JEFFREY 



LOCKHART — JEFFREY 59 

manners of Edinburgh at that time — he speaks with 
enthusiasm of the book-shop of David Laing, at No. 
49 South Bridge. " Here," he says, "my friend 
Wastle [Lockhart himself] commonly spends one or 
two hours every week he is in Edinburgh, turning 
over all the Aldines, Elzevirs, Wynkyn de Wordes, 
and Caxtons in the collection ; nor does he often 
leave the shop without taking some little specimen 
of its treasures home with him." David Laing was 
an accomplished antiquarian scholar, the librarian 
of the Signet Library, and the intimate friend of 
Scott, Jeffrey, and their peers. As a bookseller he 
succeeded his father, William Laing, who had a shop 
in the Canongate near St. Mary's Wynd. 

Francis Jeffrey was born in the four-storied house 
No. 7 Charles Street, which has known 

Jeffrey 

no change. In 1801 he began his mar- 
ried life on the third floor of No. 18 Buccleuch Place, 
one of a row of plain three-storied houses standing 
now on a broad, quiet street, two or three hundred 
yards long, roughly paved with round cobble-stones, 
between which the grass forces its way in almost 
rural luxuriance. In his little parlor here, with 
Brougham and Sydney Smith, the next year, he pro- 
jected the " Edinburgh Review." 

Between the years 1802 and 18 10 Jeffrey lived at 
No. 62 Queen Street, facing the Gardens. In 18 10 he 
removed to No. 92 George Street, which has since 
been modernized by the addition of a swell front, and 
is now a shop. His last home was in an imposing 
mansion with tall columns, numbered 24 Moray 



60 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

Place. Here he died. His high sarcophagus, 
" erected by his friends," and holding a bronze me- 
dallion portrait, stands near the west wall of the 
Dean Cemetery. 

Carlyle, in his '- Reminiscences," says : " I remem- 
ber striding off with Procter's introduction one even- 
ing towards George Street. ... I got ready admis- 
sion into Jeffrey's study — or rather ' office,' for it had 
mostly that air — a roomy, not over-neat apartment 
on the ground-floor, with a big baize-covered table 
loaded with book rows and paper bundles. On one, 
or perhaps two, of the walls were book shelves, like- 
wise well filled, but with books in tattery, ill-bound, 
or unbound condition ; . . . five pairs of candles 
were cheerfully burning, in the light of which sat 
my famous little gentleman. He laid aside his work, 
cheerfully invited me to sit down, and began talk- 
ing in a perfectly human manner." It is to be re- 
gretted that Jeffrey never put on record his first 
impressions of Carlyle. 

When Sir Walter was married in the winter of 
I7Q7-Q8 Thomas Campbell, as he says 

Campbell r /- 1r , \ 

of himself, "was living in the Scottish 
metropolis by instructing pupils in Greek and Latin. 
In this vocation I made a comfortable livelihood as 
long as I was industrious. But 'The Pleasures of 
Hope ' came over me. I took long walks about 
Arthur's Seat, conning over my own (as I thought 
them) magnificent lines; and as my 'Pleasures of 
Hope ' got on, my pupils fell off." 

Tradition says that the line " 'Tis distance lends 




CAMPBELL 



CAMPBELL — BROUGHAM 61 

enchantment to the view" was conned on Calton 
Hill, while history proves that the poem itself was 
written in Alison Square, " in the second floor of a 
stair on the north side of the central archway, with 
windows looking partly into the Potterrow and part- 
ly into Nicolson Street." This house is still stand- 
ing, although certain portions of the tenement of 
which it formed a part were removed when Marshall 
Street was cut through that part of the town in 
1876. " During the period of the poet's occupancy," 
writes Mr. Anthony C. McBryde, "and until about 
twenty years since, the tenement or block divided 
Alison and Nicolson Squares, but gave access to 
both by a pend, or archway." 

It is said that Brougham, walking once in the 
Greyfriars' Church-yard, pointed out to 

Brougham 

Robert Chambers a tall " land, "still 
standing in 1 891, at the corner of the Cowgate and 
Candlemaker Row, as the scene of his birth. Ac- 
cording to the authority of his mother, however, as 
recorded in his own " Life, Written by Himself," he 
was born at 21 St. Andrew Square, the once fine old 
mansion at the corner of St. David Street, occupied, 
in 1 89 1, by the officers of the City of Glasgow In- 
surance Company. He went to a day-school in 
George Street when very young, and later to the 
High -school and to the University. It is known 
that his father lived in George Street at one time, 
but in his "Autobiography" Brougham gives no 
hint as to any of his Edinburgh homes, except the 
first one; although he confesses to "high jinks" — 



62 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

the expression is his own — at the Apollo Club, and 
to oysters at Johnny Dovv's [Dowies?]. He writes: 
"I cannot tell how the fancy originated, but one of 
our constant exploits, after an evening at the Apollo 
or Johnny's, was to parade the streets of the New 
Town, and wrench the brass knockers off the doors, 
or tear out the brass handles of the bells. ... It will 
scarcely be credited, and yet it is true as gospel, 
that so late as March, 1803, when we gave a fare- 
well banquet to Horner, on his leaving Edinburgh 
forever to settle in London, we, accompanied by the 
grave and most sedate Horner, sallied forth to the 
North Bridge, and there halted in front of Mr. Man- 
derson the druggist's shop, where I, hoisted on the 
shoulders of the tallest of the company, placed my- 
self on the top of the doorway, held on by the sign, 
and twisted off the enormous brazen serpent which 
formed the explanatory announcement of the busi- 
ness that was carried on within." Brougham was 
then twenty-five years of age, and the " Edinburgh 
Review " was fairly on its feet ! 

When Sydney Smith arrived in Edinburgh in the 
summer of 170,8 he found lodgings at 38 

Sydney Smith c. ,. * A t 

South Hanover Street, two doors from 
George Street, and here on the first floor he lived 
for about a year. Later he was lodging at 19 Queen 
Street, not far away, and in the autumn of 1800 he 
took his young bride to 46 George Street, where he 
lived so long as he remained in the Scottish metrop- 
olis. None of these domiciles were materially 
changed, so far as their exterior was concerned, 







BROUGHAM 




SYDNEY SMITH 



SYDNEY SMITH — CHAMBERS 63 

when these lines were written, ninety years later. 
Smith preached occasionally in the pulpit of Archi- 
bald Alison, father of the historian, in Charlotte 
Chapel, Rose Street, to Dugald Stuart and other 
famous men ; and a little volume containing six of 
his sermons delivered there, and published in 1800, 
is the earliest printed book that bears his name. 
Charlotte Chapel, now the property of a Baptist 
congregation, is still standing in Rose Street. 

Although Smith told William Chambers once 
that he lived " in Buccleuch Place, not far from Jef- 
frey, with an outlook behind the Meadows," there 
is no record in his " Life " by his daughter Lady 
Holland, or in the " Life " by Mr. Stuart J. Reed, 
that he had any more intimate acquaintance with 
Buccleuch Place than as the residence of his friend 
and as the cradle of the famous periodical ; and the 
originator of the " Edinburgh Review " was perhaps 
misunderstood by the originator of the " Edinburgh 
Journal " in that regard. 

Robert and William Chambers settled in Edin- 
burgh in 1 81 3 ; their first home, accord- 
chambers . 

ing to William, was " a floor entering 

from a common stair in West Nicolson Street." 
The next year they removed to a floor in Hamil- 
ton's Entry, Bristo Street, the back windows of the 
house overlooking the small court in which was 
then still standing Sir Walter Scott's first school. 
When the family removed to Portobello in 18 14, the 
boys, for they had hardly entered their teens, found 
a home, such as it was, in the top story of a build- 
8 



64 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

ing known as Boak's Land, in the West Port, and 
Robert thus described it : " Our room and bed cost 
three shillings a week. It was in the West Port, 
near Burke's place. ... I used to be in great dis- 
tress for want of a fire. I could not afford that, or 
candles. So I often sat beside our landlady's kitch- 
en fire, if fire it could be called, which was only a 
little heap of embers, reading Horace, and conning 
my dictionary by a light which required me to hold 
the book almost to the grate." 

In 1818 Robert, then sixteen years of age, opened 
a little shop in Leith W r alk, opposite Pilrig Street, 
in which William soon after joined him, and thus 
began that successful and honorable career which 
has given the brothers so enviable a name wherever 
English is read. Robert lived in India Place, Stock- 
bridge, in Anne Street, and at No. 1 Doune Terrace, 
where he remained until he left Edinburgh perma- 
nently for St. Andrews in 1863. 

Sir David Brewster, a contributor to the " Edin- 
burgh Magazine," and the editor of the 
" Edinburgh Cyclopaedia," was a student 
at Divinity Hall when the " Edinburgh Review " 
was founded ; and he preached his first sermon at 
the West Kirk (St. Cuthbert's) in 1804. He was 
educated at the High-school and at the University, 
and he dated his letters from George Square ; from 
No. 9 North St. David Street (in 1808), and from 
No. 10 Coates Crescent (in 1823). 

Robert Pollok's only sermon was preached in 
1827 in the former chapel of Dr. John Brown — now 




BREWSTER 



BREWSTER — POLLOK — THOMAS CARLYLE 



65 



Pollok 



the United Presbyterian Church — in Rose Street ; 
and his "Course of Time" was publish- 
ed, at the suggestion of Professor Wil- 
son, by Blackwood in the same year. The greater 
part of the poem was written at No. 3 Davie Street, 
a little street running south from East Richmond 
Street, and parallel with Nicolson Street. 

The Carlyles, at the period of Thomas's famous 
Thomas visit to Jeffrey in George Street, were 
Cariyie living at Comely Bank, in one of a row 
of two-storied, uninteresting houses, calling them- 
selves " villa residences/' at the northwest of Edin- 
burgh, quite out of town even now, and facing a 
green called Stockbridge Public Park. Carlyle's 
cottage is numbered 21. Here Jeffrey often came, 




21 COMELY BANK 



66 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

and " he was much taken with my little Jeannie," 
writes Carlyle, " as well he might be, one of the 
brightest, cleverest creatures in the whole world, 
full of innocent rustic simplicity and vivacity, yet 
with the gracefulest discernment, calmly natural de- 
portment, instinct, with beauty and intelligence to 
the finger ends. He became, in a sort, her would-be 
openly declared friend and quasi-lover ; as was his 
way in such cases. He had much the habit of flirt- 
ing about with women, especially pretty women, 
much more the both pretty and clever; all in a 
weakish, most dramatic, and wholly theoretic way 
(his age now fifty gone)," etc. Comely Bank was 
the first home of the man and wife, and in it they 
were as happy as it was in their power to be, meet- 
ing Wilson, Brewster, De Quincey, and other not- 
able men and women — although never Scott — and 
corresponding with Goethe. 

Carlyle's first Edinburgh lodging, humble and 
very cheap, was in Simon Square — a dingy little 
street, then as now full of dingy and forlorn houses. 
It is entered from Gibb's Entry, 104 Nicolson Street. 
Later he lodged in Murray Street, now Spey Street, 
running parallel with Leith Walk from Pilrig Street 
to Middlefield Street. His house, No. 3 Spey Street, 
is a decent tenement, from the front windows of 
which, as Mr. Dickens would have said, the occu- 
pants can get an uninterrupted view of the dead- 
wall over the way. A pane of glass from this house 
is preserved by Mr. A. Brown, a bookseller in Bristo 
Place, upon which somebody, perhaps Carlyle, had 




CARLYLE 



I 




CARLYLES LODGINGS, SIMON SQUARE 



DE QUINCEY 



67 



scratched with a diamond four lines — slightly al- 
tered — from ''The Queen's Marys," to wit: 

" Little did my mither think, 
That night she cradled me, 
What land I was to travel in, 
Or what death I should dee — 
O foolish thee !" 



The last line sounds not unlike Carlyle ; and it is 
not improbable that the man who called Charles 
Lamb in print an " emblem of imbecility, bodily and 
spiritual," might have written his own mother down 
on a window-pane as " a silly bodie." 

Carlyle's pictures of De Ouincey at this time — 
1827 — are graphic if not flattering. 
" He is one of the smallest men you 
ever in your life beheld, but with a most gentle and 



De Quincey 




fr-^^t Aosw "^'-* ,i 



DE QUINCEY S COTTAGE, LASSWADE 



68 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

sensible face, only that the teeth are destroyed by 
opium, and the little bit of an underlip projects like 
a shelf. He speaks with a slow, sad, and soft voice, 
in the politest manner I have almost ever witnessed, 
and with great gracefulness and sense, were it not 
that he seems decidedly >given to prosing. Poor 
little fellow ! It might soften a very hard heart to 
see him so courteous, yet so weak and poor, totter- 
ing home with his two children to a miserable lodg- 
ing-house, and writing all day for that prince of 
donkeys, the proprietor of ' The Saturday Post.' " 

De Quincey lived in Great King Street, in Forres 
Street, and at Duddingston; later he lodged at 42 
Lothian Street, " in the left-hand flat on the second 
floor." This is one of the few houses in Edinburgh 
considered worthy of a label, a tablet upon it re- 
cording the fact that it was once De Quincey's home. 
"The little cottage at Lasswade," occupied by "the 
poor little fellow " during the last ten or fifteen 
years of his life, still stands near Midford House, on 
the road to Hawthornden; about a mile and a half 
beyond Lasswade, and, according to Mr. Masson, 
" near the foot of a by-road which descends to that 
hollow of the Esk which contains Polton mill and 
the Polton railway station." 

De Quincey's grave in St. Cuthbert's Church-yard 
is designated by a flat mural stone with a plain in- 
scription. It is not easily found without a guide, but 
the visitor who takes the first pathway to the right 
of the graveyard after entering from the Lothian 
Road, and then bears to the left, will come upon it. 




DE QUINCEY 



DE FOE AND OTHERS 69 

Among the men and women distinguished in the 
world of letters who at some time or other have 
breathed the reekie atmosphere of Edinburgh may 
be mentioned De Foe, who once edited the " Cou- 
rant ;" Richard Steele, who is said to have lodged 
in- Lady Stair's Close ; Goldsmith, who lodged in 
the College Wynd ; Rev. John Wesley, who preached 
on the Castle Hill in his eighty-seventh year; George 
Buchanan, the historian, who died in Kennedy's 
Close in the High Street, a few doors to the west 
of the Tron Church, and who was buried in a grave, 
now unknown, in Greyfriars' Church-yard ; Archibald 
Alison, the historian, who lived in his father's house, 
No. 44 Heriot Row ; Hugh Miller, who died in a 
semi-detached villa off the High Street, Porto- 
bello, and was buried in the Grange Cemetery; Dr. 
Thomas Chalmers, who lived at No. 3 Forres Street, 
who died in the house at the west end of Church- 
hill — No. 1 — Morningside, and who, like Dr. Guth- 
rie, Was buried in the Grange Cemetery; Dean 
Ramsay, who died at No. 23 Ainslie Place; Lady 
Anne Lindsay, who was born in Hyndford's Close, 
and who was the author of "Auld Robin Gray;" 
Jean Elliot, who lived in Brown Square, and who 
wrote the original version of " The Flowers of the 
Forest ;" Mrs. Cockburn, who wrote " another of the 
same," who lived in Blair's Close, at the Castle Hill, 
who died in Crichton Street, and who is buried in 
the grounds of Buccleuch Parish Church, at the 
junction of the Cross Causeway and Chapel Street; 
Catharine Sinclair, author of " Modern Accomplish- 



70 LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 

ments," " Modern Flirtations," and many other 
books, who lies in the church-yard of St. John's; and 
Dr. John Brown, " the Landseer of Literature," who 
lived for many years at 23 Rutland Street, and who 
rests now in the New Calton Cemetery, Regent's 
Road. 

Long before the present writer had the good 
fortune to know Dr. Brown and his dogs 

John Brown ... ' 

in their own home, he has followed them 
through the streets of Edinburgh and into the book- 
shops, for the simple privilege of patting " Dick " or 
" John Pym " upon the head, and of getting a kindly 
glance therefor from their devoted and gentle friend. 
All of the men of letters from either side of the Bor- 
der, from either side of the North Sea, and from either 
side of the Atlantic, who knew Edinburgh in Dr. 
Brown's time, knew well that house in Rutland 
Street, and loved well its master; and by no more 
beautiful road and in no more delightful society can 
we leave Edinburgh — in these pages — than by the 
Dean Road, and with Thackeray and Dr. Brown. " It 
was a lovely Sunday evening " — the words are Dr. 
Brown's own — "such a sunset as one never forgets; 
a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going 
down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed in 
amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills 
there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender 
cowslip color, lucid, and, as if it were the very body 
of heaven in its clearness ; every object standing 
out as if etched upon the sky. The northwest end 
of Corstorphine Hill, w T ith its trees and rocks, lay in 



JOHN BROWN ■ 71 

the heart of this pure radiance, and there a wooden 
crane, used in the quarry below, was so placed as to 
assume the figure of a cross; there it was, unmis- 
takable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. . . . 
As they gazed Thackeray gave utterance, in a trem- 
ulous, gentle, and rapid voice, to what both were 
feeling, in the word Calvary ! 

"The friends walked on in silence, and then turned 
to other things." 
9 



1 






INDEX OF PERSONS 



Alison, Archibald, Rev., 63, 

69. 
Alison, Archibald, Sir, 63, 69. 
Aytoun, Wm. Edmondstoune, 

54-5- 
Aytoun, Mrs. Wm. E., 55. 

Ballantyne, James, 53. 
Beauclerc, Topham, 20. 
Black, Joseph, 42. 
Blacklock, Thomas, 30. 
Blackwood, William, 54, 65. 
Blair, Hugh, D.D., 25, 28,42. 
Boswell, James, 18-22, 41. 
Boswell, Mrs. James, 22. 
Boswell, Veronica, 18, 22. 
Boyd, " Lucky," 18-19, 21, 22. 
Brewster, Sir David, 64, 66. 
Brougham, Lord, 59,61-2. 
Brougham, Mrs. Henry, 61. 
Brown, A., 66. 
Brown, John, D.D., 64. 
Brown, John, M.D., 16, 56, 

70-1. 
Buchanan, George, 69. 
Bunbury, Henry William, 43. 
Burger, Gottfried August, 49. 
Burke, William, 64. 
Burnet, Miss, 41. 
Burns, Robert, 15, 26, 30, 31, 

34, 35, 36, 37-47, 53, 5& 
Burton, John Hill, 23. 

Cad ell, Robert, 51. 
Campbell, Thomas, 44, 55, 
60-1. 



Carfrae, Mrs., 37. 
Carlyle, Alexander, 25, 26, 28. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 60, 65-7. 
Carlyle, Mrs. Thomas, 65-6. 
Chalmers, Thomas, D.D., 69. 
Chambers, Robert, 21-2, 24, 

61, 63-4. 
Chambers, William, 63-4. 
Charteris, Francis (Lord El- 

cho), 40. 
"Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose), 

39-44- 
Cockburn, Mrs. Catherine, 

48-9, 69. 
Cockburn, Henry, 45. 
Constable, Archibald, 54, 56. 
Creech, William, 31, 33. 
Croker, John Wilson, 21. 
Cromek, R. H., 37. 
Cruikshank, William, 38. 
Cunningham, Allan, 37. 

Davies, Thomas, 20. 

De Foe, Daniel, 69. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 66, 67-8. 

Dickens, Charles, 66. 

Douglas, Downey, 42. 

Dowie, "Johnnie," 35, 41-2, 

55, 62. 
Drummond, William, 15, 16- 

18,31. 

Elcho, Lord ( Francis Char- 
teris), 40. 
Elliot, Jean, 69. 
Erskine, Henry, 18. 



74 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 



Ferguson, Adam, 25, 26, 28, 

33-4, 42, 43, 45-6. 
Ferguson, Robert, 29, 33, 34-7. 

Gay, John, 32-3. 
Goethe, John Wolfgang, 66. 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 69. 
Grant, Alexander, 52. 
Gray, Thomas, 17. 
Grierson, Thomas, 43. 
Guthrie, Thomas, D.D.,47, 69. 

Hawkins, Letitia, 20. 
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 

55- 
Hogg, James, 54, 55, 56-8. 
Holland Lady, 63. 
Home, John, 25, 26-9. 
Hone, William, 41. 
Horace, 64. 
Horner, Francis, 62. 
Hume, David, 22-4, 25, 26, 27, 

28, 42. 

Jamieson, John, 22. 

Jeffrey, Francis, 48, 54, 59-60, 

63, 65-6. 
Johnson, Samuel, 18-22, 31,41. 
Jonson, Ben, 16, 17, 18. 

Laing, David, 59. 
Laing, William, 59. 
Lamb, Charles, 67. 
Langhorne, John, 43. 
Langton, Bennet, 20. 
Lenox, Charlotte, 20. 
Lindsay, Lady Anne, 69. 
Lockhart, John Gibson, 38, 42, 
50,51,52,56,57,58-9. 

Manderson, Mr., 62. 
Masson, David, 68. 
McBryde, Anthony C.,xiv., 61. 
McKenzie, Henry, 25, 29-30, 

33- 
Middlemist, " Lucky," 34-5. 



Miller, Hugh, 69. 
Milton, John, 48. 
M'Lehose, Mrs. (" Clarinda"), 

39-4o. 
Monboddo, Lord, 37,41, 53. 
Munro, Archibald, 45-6. 
Murphy, Arthur, 20. 

Nasmyth, Alexander, 44. 
Nicoll, William, 38. 

"Peter Pindar" (John Wol- 

cot), 20. 
Pollok, Robert, 64-5. 
Porter, Lucy, 20. 
Pringle, " Lucky," 38. 
Prior, Matthew, 32. 
Procter, Bryan Waller, 60. 

Queensberry, Duchess of, 32-3. 

Ramsay, Allan, 15, 29, 30-2, 

33- 
Ramsay, Edward Bannerman, 

D.D., 69. 
Reed, Stuart J., 63. 
Richard, Prior, 16. 
Richmond, John, 37. 
Robertson, William, D.D., 25, 

28, 33- 

Scott, Michael (1214-1300), 

16. 
Scott, Michael (1789-1835), 

16. 
Scott, Lady, 50, 51, 57-8. 
Scott, Walter, Mr., 52. 
Scott, Mrs. Walter, 52. 
Scott, Walter, Sir, 1 5, 26, 42- 

54,55,57-8,59,60,63,66. 
Sinclair, Catherine, 69-70. 
Smellie, William, 42. 
Smith, Adam, 25, 26, 33,42. 
Smith, Sydney, 59, 62-3. 
Smollett, Tobias, 24-5, 26. 
Steele, Sir Richard, 69. 



INDEX OF PERSONS 



75 



Stewart, Dugald, 28, 33, 43. 

Telfer, Mrs., 24. 
Thackeray, William Mak< 

peace, 70-71. 
Thrale, Mrs. Henry, 20. 

Voltaire, 22. 

Walker, Helen, 53. 
Wallace, Robert, D.D., 25. 



Walpole, Horace, 32-3. 
Warde, Sarah, 28. 
Watson, William Stewart, 40. 
Wesley, John. 69. 
Wilkie, William, D.D., 25. 
Williams, Anna, 20. 
Williamson, Peter, 45. 
Wilson, John, 15, 54-6, 66. 
Wilson, Jane Emily (Mrs. Ay- 

toun), 55. 
Wolcot, John, 20. 



, 



INDEX OF PLACES 



Abbotsford, 51, 52, 58. 
Advocates' Library, 18. 
Ainslie Place, 33, 69. 
Alison Square, 55, 61. 
Ambrose's Tavern, 55, 56. 
Anchor Close, 42. 
Ann Street, 56. 
Anne Street, 54, 64. 
Apollo Club, 62. 
Argyle Square, 25, 45, 46. 
Arthur's Seat, 60. 
Assembly Rooms, George 

Street, 51. 
Athens, xiii. 
Athol Crescent, 51, 58. 

Baxter's Close, 37-8. 
Bernard Street, Leith, 27. 
Blackfriars' Monastery, 17. 
Blair's Close, 69. 
Boak's Land, 64. 
Boyd's Close, 19. 
Braid's Place, 46. 
Bristo Place, 34, 66. 
Bristo Street, 40, 49, 63. 
Broughton, 25. 
Brown Square, 29, 69. 
Buccleuch Parish Church, 

69. 
Buccleuch Pend, 37, 38. 
Buccleuch Place, 38, 59, 63. 
Buccleuch Road, 37, 38. 
Buccleuch Street, 38. 
Burns Tavern, 35. 

Cafe Royal, 56. 



Calton Burying-ground, 24. 
Calton Hill, 61. 
Candlemaker Row, 56, 61. 
Canongate, 16, 19, 23, 24, 26, 

28,32-3,41,52,59. 
Canongate Church-yard, 26, 

33> 34, 36-7. 
Canongate Theatre, 28. 
Cap and Feather Close, 34. 
Cape Club, 35. 
Carrubber's Close, 32. 
Castle, The, 15, 18, 32. 
Castle Hill, 16,69. 
Castle Street, 50, 54, 57. 
Chambers Street, 29, 45, 47. 
Chapel Street, 69. 
Charles Street, 59. 
Charlotte Chapel, 63. 
Church-hill, 69. 
City Cross, 31. 
City Hospital, 14, 49. 
City of Glasgow Insurance 

Company, 61. 
Coates Crescent, 51, 64. 
Cockburn Street, 42. 
Cockburn Tavern, 35. 
College Wynd, 47, 52, 69. 
Comely Bank, 65-6. 
Convent of St. Katherine of 

Siena, 47. 
Corstorphine Hill, 70-1. 
Cowgate, 18, 29, 35, 47, 52, 61. 
Craig's Close, 35. 
Cranston Street, 53. 
Creech's Land, 31, 33. 
Crichton Street, 69. 



78 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 



Cross Causeway, 69. 

Darien House, 34. 
Davie Street, 65. 
Dean Cemetery, 54, 60. 
Dean Road, 70. 
Dean Terrace, 57. 
Deanhaugh Street, 54, 56-7. 
Divinity Hall, 64. 
Douglas Hotel, 51. 
Dowie's Tavern, 35, 41-2, 55, 

62. 
Duddingston, 68. 
Duddingston Church, 53. 

East Richmond Street, 65. 

Forres Street, 68, 69. 

Gabriel's Road, 55, 56. 
General Post-office, 39. 
General's Entry, 40. 
George IV. Bridge, 29, 35. 
George Square, 48-9, 64. 
George Street, 50, 51, 52, 54, 

59, 60,61, 62, 65. 
Gibb's Entry, 66. 
Gloucester Place, 54. 
Grange Cemetery, 25, 69. 
Grange House, 25. 
Grass-market, 56. 
Great King Street, 68. 
Great Stuart Street, 55. 
Greenside, 39. 
Greyfriars' Church-yard, 25, 

2 9~30» 30-1, 52, 61, 69. 
Guthrie Street, 47. 

Hamilton's Entry, 49, 63. 
Hanover Street, 51. 
Harrow Inn, 56. 
Hawthornden, 16, 17, 18, iq, 

31,68. 
Heriot Row, 29, 69. 
High School, 16, 17, 29, 33, 34, 

38, 39- 49, 64. 



High School Wynd, 17. 
High Street, 16, 21, 22, 31-2, 

35,38,42,52,69. 
High Street, Portobello, 69. 
Holyrood Palace, 15. 
Horse Wynd, 28, 33. 
House of Refuge, 33. 
Howgate, 56. 
Hyndford's Close, 52, 69. 

India Place, 64. 

Infirmary Street, 17,49. 

Inveresk, 26. 

Inverleith Terrace, 55. 

Isle of Man's Arms Tavern, 35. 

Jack's Land, 23. 
James's Court, 21, 23, 25. 
Jamaica, 39. 

"Jennie Dean's Cottage," 53. 
"Johnnie" Dowie's Tavern, 
35,41-2,55,62. 

Kennedy's Close, 69. 
Kilduff, 27. 
Kilmarnock, 30. 
Kilwinning Lodge of Free- 
masons, 37, 40-1, 58. 
Kirkgate Street, Leith, 27. 

Lady Stair's Close, 38, 69. 
Lasswade, 18, 68. 
Lawn-market, 21, 22, 29, 37. 
Leith, 27. 

Leith Walk, 64, 66. 
Leith Wynd, 53. 
Liberton's Wynd, 29, 35. 
Little Jock's Close, 23. 
London, xiii., 20, 62. 
Lothian Hut, 33. 
Lothian Road, 68. 
Lothian Street, 68. 
Luckenbooths, 31. 

Maitland Street, 51, 58. 
Marshall Street, 40, 61. 



INDEX OF PLACES 



79 



Mauchline, 37. 
Meadows, The, 48, 63. 
Melville Street, Portobello, 

58. 
Middlefield Street, 66. 
Midford House, 68. 
Moray Place, 54, 59-60. 
Morningside, 69. 
Murray Street, 66. 
Mussleburgh, 26, 28. 

Netherbow, 16. 
New Calton Cemetery, 70. 
New Register House, 55, 56. 
Nicolson Square, 61. 
Nicolson Street, 61, 65, 66. 
Niddry Street, 31. 
Niddry's Wynd, 31, 34. 
North Bridge, 34, 56, 62. 
North St. David Street, 64. 
Northumberland Street, 58. 

Old Calton Burying-ground, 
24. 

Panmure Close, 26. 
Panmure House, 26. 
Paris, France, 16. 
Parliament House, 18. 
Pilrig Street, 64, 66. 
Playhouse Close, 28. 
Polton Mill, 68. 
Portobello, 58, 63, 69. 
Post-office, 39. 
Potterrow, 40, 6 1 . 
Prestonpans, 48. 
Princes Street, 51, 52, 54. 
Princes Street Gardens, 32. 

Quality Street, Leith, 27. 
Queen Street, 33, 54, 59, 62. 
Queen Street Gardens, 29, 54, 

59- 

Queensberry House, 32-3. 

Raeburn Place, 57. 



Ramsay Gardens, 32. 
Ramsay Place, 32. 
Regent's Road, 70. 
Register House, 46, 55. 
Riddle's Close, 22, 23. 
Rose Street, 23, 63. 
Roslin, 19, 37, 41. 
Rutland Street, 70. 

St. Andrews, Fife, 64. 

St. Andrew Square, 23, 51, 52, 

61. 
St. Cuthbert's Church, 64. 
St. Cuthbert's Church - yard, 

68. 
St. David Street, 23, 50-1, 61. 
St. Giles Church, 15, 18, 31. 
St. James Square, 37, 39. 
St. John Street, 24, 37, 41, 53. 
St. John's Church, 52. 
St. John's Church-yard, 70. 
St. Leonard's Hill, 53. 
St. Mary Street, 19. 
St. Mary's Wynd, 19, 59. 
St. Patrick Square, 38. 
" Saut Market," 50. 
Sciennes, The, 45, 46. 
Sciennes Hill, 46. 
Sciennes House, 37, 46-7. 
Scottish Union and Insurance 

Company, 51. 
Scott Monument, 15. 
Shandwick Place, 51. 
Signet Library, 59. 
Silvermills, 56. 
Simon Square, 66. 
Six-Feet Club, 55. 
South Back of Canongate, 41. 
South Bridge, 35, 56, 59. 
South Bridge Street, 47. 
South Castle Street, 50. 
South Hanover Street, 62. 
South Leith Parish Church, 

27. 
Spey Street, 66. 
Stockbridge, 64. 



So 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH 



Stockbridge Public Park, 65. 
Tron Church, 24, 69. 

United Presbyterian Church, 

Rose Street, 65. 
University, 16, 17, 18, 27, 28, 

29. 33. 45.49. 55. 61, 64. 

Walker Street, 5.1. 
Waterloo Place, 39. 
Water of Leith, 54, 57. 
Waverley Bridge, 56. 
West College Street, 47. 



West Kirk (St. Cuthbert's), 

64, 
West Nicolson Street, 63. 
West Port, 64. 
West Register Street, 56. 
West Richmond Street, 65. 
White Horse Inn, Boyd's 

Close, 19. 
White Horse Inn, White 

Horse Wynd, 19. 
White Horse Wynd, 19. 
Whitfield Chapel, 32. 
Wynd of the Blessed-Mary- 

in-the-Field, 47. 



THE END. 



LITERARY LANDMARKS OF LONDON. 

By Laurence Hutton. pp. xii., 363. Illustrated. 
Post 8vo, Cloth. New Edition in Press. 

It is a volume that every one should possess who takes an interest 
in the local associations which London is so full of, unknown though 
they be to the vast majority of its inhabitants. With this compen- 
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in which some fresh feature of interest would not be disclosed for all 
persons who have any taste for, and knowledge of, literature and letters. 
— Standard, London. 

It is brief and to the point, yet is enriched with many a quaint 
story and many a pleasing reminiscence. It is a model of industry. — 
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A book which is so obviously what we all constantly want that it 
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True, places of literary association are noted incidentally in ordinary 
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Mr. Hutton has attained a great measure of completeness in his task, 
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omitted. . . . Altogether, this is a book of which literary America may 
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what we have never done for ourselves. — Saturday Review, London. 

The plan laid down by the author is admirably carried out, and the 
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is no attempt to write lives of the persons chronicled, but all the facts 
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It would be difficult to praise Mr. Hutton too highly for the spirit 
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bricks and mortar down to the year 1885. He has thus written not 
only for the present but also for the future. . . . Our children will 
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the result of his own inspection of every historic house, its condition, 
and its present name and number. And we ourselves thank him for 
having incalculably augmented the value of his book for use by two 
exhaustive indexes — the one of names, the other of places. — Acad- 
emy, London. . 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

The above work will be sent by mail, postage paid, to any part of the United States, 
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THE AMERICAN STAGE. 

Curiosities of the American Stage. By Laurence Hut- 
ton. With Copious and Characteristic Illustrations, 
pp. xi., 347. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt 
Top, $2 50. 

Mr. Hutton has packed a marvellous amount of curious informa- 
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Mr. Hutton writes entertainingly and with knowledge of the stage, 
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ject is more painstaking and accurate than Laurence Hutton. His 
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Theatrical literature has nothing better and few things as good. . . . 
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One of the most important contributions yet made to the history of 
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This is by far the best book of its kind ; some readers may go fur- 
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